Donald Trump Jr. released his conversation with WikiLeaks — but that doesn't mean he's in the clear

President Donald Trump with his son Donald Trump Jr.
REUTERS/Lucas Jackson

Donald Trump Jr. tweeted a record of his conversations with WikiLeaks.

WikiLeaks, which experts suspect coordinates with Russia, suggested some destabilizing things, but President Donald Trump's son rarely replied.

Some circumstantial evidence suggests that the Trump campaign was following WikiLeaks' advice.

Donald Trump Jr. tweeted on Monday night what he said was the entirety of his communication with WikiLeaks, the anti-secrecy website that published wave after wave of information damning to Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign before last year's election.

Trump Jr. says he responded to WikiLeaks only three times, as the agency repeatedly goaded him to push its hacked and leaked information and to challenge the results of the election if his father, Donald Trump, lost.

In the run-up to last year's election, WikiLeaks consistently published leaked and hacked emails from the Clinton campaign but spared the Trump campaign.

The elder Trump had said on the campaign trail that he loved WikiLeaks, and he often brought up the leaked information.

Robert Mueller, the special counsel investigating whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russia — which is suspected to coordinate with WikiLeaks— has scrutinized the younger Trump's contact with Russian agents in the past.

In the released messages posted by Trump Jr., WikiLeaks appeared to be pressing him for access into the campaign and to push its publications. The younger Trump seemed to show little interest and replied only three times.

But The Atlantic noted circumstantial evidence that the younger Trump may have been influenced by messages to which he did not respond in the thread.